When you talk to Mila Feldman, a co-founder and co-owner of Executive Care LLC in Hackensack, she talks about “heart” a lot.

Executive Care is a home care company that’s in an expansion mode, and has just begun selling franchises. Feldman and her husband, Lenny Verkhoglaz, decided to start the company after an experience that showed their “heart,” their compassion.

On Valentine’s Day 2003 the Hillsdale couple got a call from friends in their temple, seeking assistance for an elderly woman. The woman, who was basically bedridden, had been left alone by her daughter, who had gone away on vacation.

Feldman and Verkhoglaz volunteered to go to the woman’s home and care for her. They slept on a floor mattress to be near her.

“We stayed a few days,” Verkhoglaz said. While they were there Mila’s brother Alex Feldman, now also a co-owner of Executive Care, watched their daughters.

After that Valentine’s Day experience, the trio the next year decided to launch a home care company. It’s not a business for everyone, according to Mila.

“Your heart has to be in it,” she said. “One thing about home health care, is your heart has to be in it. You have to love what you do.”

Offering compassion, TLC, helps make people well, according to Mila. Executive Care had a client who had been sent home from a hospice, given just two weeks to live. But she hung on, and actually survived for four years, Mila said. How did this seeming miracle occur?

The woman had a devoted “great nephew,” and the aide was caring, according to Mila. “The one-on-one care really, really, really helps people to get well, to get stronger … Believe it or not, the aide that took care of her is still working with us. It’s rewarding.”

In some cases, a person with an Executive Care aide who came home bed-bound manages to start walking again, Alex Feldman said. Family members say they can’t believe it.

“That’s a success,” he said.

A clean house and clean bedding lift a patient’s morale, as well, according to Mila, and that’s a priority for Executive Care.

“As soon as somebody needs to get changed, the aide is right there,” she said. “They do not sit there in a dirty diaper for hours, because we’ve seen that. Not to say anything bad about nursing homes, but they don’ have enough staff to come to them (residents) every moment as when you have the one-on-one.”

Administrators and owners of assisted-living facilities and nursing homes often turn to Executive Care when they need home care for one of their loved ones, according to Feldman.